218 VENOMOUS SNAKES AND THE PHENOMENA OF THEIR VENOMS 



minutes; the venom itself was neutralized by antivenin after it had already 

 done its destructive work on alexine. Calmette and Noc regarded this as 

 the complement-fixation by venom amboceptor. 



In 1908 Morgenroth and Kaya * found that the complement of guinea-pig 

 serum is destroyed by cobra venom after several hours' contact at 37 C. or 

 room temperature, but not so much at o C. Such serum is unable to activate 

 cobra venom for haemolyzing the corpuscles of goat blood, although simul- 

 taneous admixture of the serum, cobra venom, and the corpuscles results in 

 the completion of haemolysis. Coincidentally the complementary function 

 of the serum for the anti-goat haemolytic amboceptor (from immunized rabbit) 

 is seen to have been diminished considerably. These authors consider the 

 destruction of the complement in this case to be due to the action of certain 

 ferment-like bodies present in the venom. They found that this anticom- 

 plementary function of cobra is lost on boiling. 



It is not at all improbable that the disappearance of the complement is due 

 to the action of proteolytic ferment already described by Flexner and Noguchi 

 and by Noc, although nothing definite can be said about the mechanism. 



1 Morgenroth and Kaya. Ueber eine komplementzerstorende Wirkung des Kobragiftes. Biochem. 

 Zeitschrift, 1908, VIII, 378. 



